Newark's "Telegraph Jubilee" of 1858 Still Happens Every Day...

In my years of teaching in the 21st century, and especially during my time at Arts High, I have learned that there are two issues central in the life of every student. The first is their own concept of individuality. My students attend our amazing school because they’re individuals who want to develop and hone a variety of skills specifically geared toward self-expression. This is pretty obvious. Individuality and expression infuse every factor of their lives, from their class participation to their assignments to their notebook doodles (many of which, I have to admit, are astounding).

But there is another issue that almost every one of my students would instantly acknowledge, and that is connectivity. My students are bright and ambitious, and will capably tell you that while self-expression is admirable, if you can’t get your message out, if you can’t get your audience thinking, then the effort might have been in vain.

Let’s stick with connectivity. My students are obsessed with it, its impact and its long-term implications on their lives and the city as a whole. About 98 percent of my students have either a smartphone or connected tablet. They cherish their devices. They dress them up in all sorts of zany cases, with some placing strange reflective stickers on their screens to “protect privacy.” They rarely if ever forget them in class, which is amazing because as a teen I basically retained nothing. And on the odd occasion when a smartphone or tablet is left in class, within an hour or two – but certainly by 3 p.m. – an out-of-breath, nearly hysterical teen will race into my room to retrieve it. The expressions of grateful relief, of a “second chance at life” on their faces are always the same.

This fixation with connectivity is a human one, but a local one as well. The Brick City and its residents have a relationship with the concept that reaches far back into their history. How far back? Well, one of the best examples that I’ve discovered happened in early September of 1858.

In 1858 America had one foot in its past, and one struggling to step into modernity. Black slaves still worked the fields of the American South in their subjugated millions. White women were subjected to the near-absolute authority of their fathers and husbands. Injured? The best a doctor could do for you was a combination of medieval tradition and a quick blade. It wasn’t pretty.

On the other hand, Newark had already installed a working city system of gas lamps. Thundering trains, loaded with goods and immigrants, brought the city wealth and power. Vast lengths of Broad, Market and other streets were handsomely paved with cobblestone. And most significantly, the city was wired. Newark was online – sort of.

The telegraph had come to Newark – and to the rest of the nation – in the 1830’s and 40’s. With it came instant news on local and distant affairs. Newark’s newspapers competed fiercely to bring their readers the latest information. This acceleration of information affected everything, from politics to local gossip to economics. By the mid-1850’s, much of what we now know as continental North America was “wired.” How wired? In 1849, when hundreds of Essex county residents read about the vast amounts of gold waiting for them in California (via a ‘wired’ news story), they literally dropped everything, leased a ship on the city’s Passaic River Waterfront, and split. They embarked on an 8000+ mile voyage that would take them around the frozen tip of South America, into the Pacific and on to the Port of San Francisco. There wouldn’t be a Panama Shortcut for decades.

If you look at the city’s papers in the 1850’s, you see a community obsessed with connectivity and its possibilities. New telegraph lines and companies were big news. But for Newark’s residents, the biggest news, or at least pieces of it, began to appear during the middle part of the decade. Early stories and commentaries hinted at it. Editors hoped for it, but looked upon it as more of an idea from science fiction. It was a Transatlantic Cable.

By 1857 the city’s editors and journalists, and a good deal of its citizens, had read that plans were indeed underway to construct a transatlantic line. Cyrus Field, a young American retiree, had made millions on the paper business. Now he had put together a company, raised capital and hired a staff of experts to design, build and lay a cable across the Atlantic Ocean. Field was determined to wire the world, to create a true global electronic network that would unite the hemispheres with the power of instant communications.

Newark’s papers covered the cable’s construction and deployment in great detail. Its residents read of how the cable would be submerged by two ships in mid-ocean, and then plied out in opposite directions until the wire stretched from Newfoundland in North America to the coast of southeastern Ireland (then a British possession). It was impossible to believe. The technology behind the cable was wild and barely tested. Then the news broke. In late summer of 1858, Newark’s Centinel of Freedom reported that construction was completed with the cable in working order. In a time of great darkness, with the nation clearly marching towards the calamity of Civil War, a metallic wire on the bottom of the icy North Atlantic brought the people of the United States – and especially that of Newark – to a moment of instant celebration. The Centinel of Freedom called it “The Telegraph Jubilee.”

Newark’s city leaders and its people now saw a globe of limitless possibilities. Oceanic communication links would no longer be at the mercy of the elements. Local businessmen imagined new customers in distant Europe. Irish immigrants, who thought that they would never  hear from any of their kin on the Emerald Isle, eagerly anticipated renewed family ties. The Tyrant of Distance had been slayed.

The Telegraph Jubilee was one of the largest and most comprehensive civic celebrations in the city’s history. On September 6, 1858, the city erupted with elation. Nearly everyone took the day off. Thousands of people poured into the city by train.

The day started with a series of parades down Broad Street. Local military leaders, troops, and a host of civic, professional and other residents dressed up in their best for the march. Butchers paraded, and donned their tidiest whites to hail the achievement. City Firemen constructed elaborate floats illuminated with light, complete with models of the cable crossing the Atlantic seabed, uniting America and Britain. Newark’s businesses posted their exuberance at the moment. At the corners of Market and Washington Streets the city’s German newspaper placed a huge sign. “Jupiter once from the heavens hurled his punishing bolts; man grasped them to send messages of peace. Nature has separated Continents---Science and Art Have United Them.”

Nightfall saw the culmination of what was surely one of the city’s most optimistic days in its long history. Thousands of lanterns were placed in windows and on sidewalks. Drinkers cheered, toasting “Franklin, Morse (the inventor of the telegraph), and Field.”

Newark and Connectivity. These 19th century residents of the Brick City celebrated because they saw the potential of a wired world. My 21st century Arts High kids treasure their smart devices because they know of its benefits. While the Telegraph Jubilee has long since past, it really happens a little bit every day, whenever a shiny new iPhone or Galaxy flickers to life in the hands of a delighted Newark teen.